8 New England Cozy Mysteries Perfect for Leaf-Peeping Season
There may be no better place to spend autumn than New England. (If you know, you know.) Imagine winding country roads beneath canopies of scarlet and gold, white-steepled villages, covered bridges, apple orchards, steaming mugs of cider, and mountainsides transformed by brilliant fall foliage.
Of course, cozy mystery readers know there’s just one thing that can improve upon all that autumnal perfection: a murder.
These eight cozy mysteries transport readers to Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire during the most colorful time of year. Some feature actual leaf-peeping tourists, while others revolve around harvest festivals, campgrounds, orchards, and small New England towns settling into autumn. Now, grab a sweater and something warm to drink—we’re going leaf-peeping without ever leaving the reading chair.
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The Body in the Trees by Jessica Fletcher and Terrie Farley Moran
It’s leaf-peeping season in Cabot Cove, and four friends from Florida have arrived to experience a quintessential Maine autumn filled with hiking, fishing, and spectacular fall foliage. But when one of the tourists disappears and her body is discovered caught in the branches below a ridge, Jessica Fletcher begins looking into the real reason the young woman came to Cabot Cove.
This one could practically have been written for a leaf-peeping mystery list. Cabot Cove is crowded with autumn visitors, and the beautiful Maine scenery provides a colorful backdrop for a decidedly dark secret.
Masked Intentions by Kara Lacey
Autumn has transformed the mountains surrounding Stonebridge, Vermont, just in time for the village’s annual harvest festival. Leaf-peeping tourists have descended on town, but the festivities take a sinister turn when one guest at a masquerade party dies and another becomes critically ill.
Photographer Bobbie Brooks and her fellow camera-club members begin looking into herbal poisons, hidden motives, and clues captured through Bobbie’s camera lens. With brilliant Vermont foliage, a village green, a harvest festival, and crowds of leaf peepers, this cozy is about as New England-autumnal as a mystery can get.
A Roux of Revenge by Connie Archer
October has arrived in Snowflake, Vermont, bringing golden leaves, pumpkin rice soup, tourists, and the town’s annual Harvest Festival. Lucky Jamieson’s soup shop is packed with customers when a mysterious newcomer begins watching one of her young employees—and an unidentified man is found murdered inside a van.
Soon Lucky realizes the crime may be connected to secrets that reach far into the past. Between the foliage, soup, chilly weather, festival crowds, and small-town Vermont setting, this mystery delivers an especially generous serving of autumn coziness.
Feel the Bern by Andrew Shaffer
Yes, really. This lighthearted mystery casts a fictionalized Bernie Sanders as an amateur sleuth—and sends him straight into one of the most autumnal settings imaginable.
Senator Sanders returns to Vermont during the congressional recess for a weekend of appearances in Eagle Creek, billed as “America’s #1 Leaf Peeping Destination.” When a local banker connected to the maple industry is found dead in Lake Champlain, Bernie and his young intern Crash Robertson begin investigating a wonderfully Vermont-flavored collection of suspects involving maple syrup, local businesses, family secrets, and murder.
The Leaf Peeper Murders by P.I. Barrington and Loni Emmert
Few titles could be better suited to this list. Button Hollow is the sort of peaceful little New Hampshire town where serious crime is practically unheard of—until bodies begin turning up.
Local busybody Ann Jolie Watson and her self-appointed Citizens’ Brigade are already convinced that suspicious things are happening around town, much to the exasperation of Sheriff Jeff Ramsey. But as murder intrudes on Button Hollow’s picture-perfect New England world, the town’s quirky residents prove considerably more interested in investigating than the sheriff might prefer.
Harvest Homicide by Kathleen Suzette
Fall has arrived in Sandy Harbor, Maine, and Allie is enjoying early-morning runs, a new business venture, and pumpkin spice lattes with her best friend Lucy. But a trip to a local farm ends abruptly when the women discover a dead body.
With Allie’s husband handling the official investigation, Allie and Lucy conduct a little unofficial sleuthing of their own. Baking, town gossip, a local farm, and swirling crimson-and-gold leaves make this a particularly inviting Maine autumn mystery.
S’mores & Suspicions by Nikki Weber
Summer camping season may be winding down, but Noelle Cooper has one final event planned for her family’s rural Maine campground: a s’mores-themed celebration complete with a competition for the best gooey creation.
Then a camper dies, and Noelle suspects the death wasn’t natural. As she tries to solve the mystery before the campground closes for the season, autumn settles over Maine with crisp air, falling leaves, s’mores, and all the pleasures of camping when summer crowds have gone home.
Haunted Hayride with Murder by Auralee Wallace
Erica Bloom is enjoying autumn in Otter Lake, New Hampshire: changing leaves, apple cider, cozy sweaters, and her blossoming relationship with Sheriff Grady Forrester. Then local teenagers exploring an apple orchard discover a boot—with the bones of a human foot still inside.
The remains appear to belong to someone who disappeared long ago, resurrecting stories about a witch supposedly haunting the orchard near the White Mountains. Erica and the Otter Lake Security team must separate local legend from very real murder in a mystery overflowing with New Hampshire fall atmosphere.
Where’s your favorite place to spend the fall season? Let us know in the comments below.
Murder Among the Maple Leaves
There’s a reason New England and cozy mysteries make such natural companions. Quaint villages, old houses, winding country roads, family farms, apple orchards, local festivals, and everybody-knows-everybody communities already contain nearly all the ingredients of a classic cozy. Add New England’s spectacular autumn colors and the setting becomes almost irresistible.
These mysteries offer eight very different ways to visit New England at its most beautiful—from leaf-peeping in Cabot Cove and harvest festivities in Vermont to s’mores around a Maine campground and an eerie apple orchard beneath New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Just be careful where you stop to admire the leaves. In a cozy mystery, there might be a body underneath them.
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